Downtown Bryan Association Receives $10,000 Grant

There’s going to be a new attraction in historic downtown Bryan, thanks to a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Interim Executive Director René Lawrence for the Downtown Bryan Association says that not only will the art installation be a benefit to the community, but it will also be a product of the community.

Lawrence says the way downtown evolved left a blank canvas primed for development in the north end, and the DBA will work with Texas A&M’s Departments of Architecture and Visualization, as well as Bryan ISD, for design and installation.

She says the structure will be an open steel-framed structure, about 10′ x 10′ x 10′, and sculptural and interactive installations will suspend from, anchor to, grow upon or float within it.

Lawrence says images will be posted as soon as the students begin designing during the spring semester, and the DBA also hopes to get the input of downtown residents.

She says a downtown is ideally a place where community, commerce and culture come together, and any time one area of downtown is strengthened, it benefits the other areas.

The competitive grant award will help fund materials and planning for the project, as well as artistic instruction.
“The NEA grant is one of the most competitive and prestigious grants in the country,” says Chris Dyer, CEO of
the Arts Council of the Brazos Valley.

“It reflects well on Downtown Bryan and the BCS area as a whole that the NEA has bestowed an award upon our community because these grants are typically awarded to larger cities.

This kind of national recognition shows that Downtown really is an arts hub, and the NEA sees and recognizes the creative community growing in Downtown.”

The Downtown Bryan Association project was one of only 8 awarded in Texas, and 153 nationally out of thousands of applicants.

“Through a rigorous peer-review panel process, the NEA ensures that projects recommended for funding are among the most creative, the most effective, and will make a real impact,” said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman in the award announcement.

The concept of the project is centered around activating the currently vacant North end of Downtown.